The 4 Best Gaming PC Under 500 dollars (2018 Edition)

This is a budget-friendly list showing the best gaming PC under 500 dollars. These gaming rigs are average and would perform very well when playing games and running software. The CUK HP Pavilion 570 Tower PCruns FIFA 18 on ultra settings because of its dedicated GTX 1050 Ti graphics card.

So you can buy a gaming PC for less than $500 and still enjoy recent 2017-2018 games on Medium to Ultra high settings that I can guarantee because I have proof of what GTX 1050 can do which is present in the No. 1 best gaming pc under 500 dollars.

The Best 4 Gaming Laptops Under 500 Dollars

This is an all white or black gaming desktop with excellent build quality cases, you won’t see any low-quality cheap plastic case on the CUK HP Pavilion 570 Tower PC which is the best gaming pc under 500 dollars because it has the best graphics card, fastest processor, RAM among its peers.

The full meaning of CUK is Computer Upgrade King.

I love the white and green look quality case design, it stands out from the regular transparent gaming desktop cases. The CUK Lineage gaming desktop has more than just its beautiful gaming case, it also houses the powerful GTX 1050 Ti graphics card which is the best GPU on this best gaming pc under 500 dollar article.

The CUK Lineage Gaming Desktop boasts a cost-effective Aluminum Mini-ITX Tower desktop that brings you quality without overpaying. Let your desktop stand out with the sleek lighting on the front of the case.

Cons

Equip yourself with this epic gaming desktop and enjoy most demanding and popular games on the market today! The iBUYPOWER Gaming Desktop PC AM8140A holds the 2nd spot strongly because while the GTX 1050 is the best GPU you can get in a gaming pc under 500 dollars. the AMD Radeon RX 550 is the is the second best GPU with the same 2GB dedicated graphics memory you can get a gaming computer with $500.

It sports classic transparent case which makes the gaming pc look really good. One thing the iBuyPower gaming desktop has over the first two options is the fact that it has 6 cores thanks to the AMD FX-6300 running at 3.5Ghz and it can be overclocked to 4.1Ghz which is the highest clock speed on this list.

What games can it run?

The iBUYPOWER Gaming Desktop PC can run the following games on the list below.

Pros

Cons

This is my list of the best gaming desktops under $500 in 2018 after going through 20 gaming desktops.

My Brief Gaming PC History

It has always been a dream of mine to build a gaming PC but as I got older and realized the actual cost and lifespan of each gaming PC the dream slowly faded away.

Reasons why because building a gaming PC seems glamorous to say the least but the major turn off for me is the time frame your gaming PC would last or stay relevant.

GPUs are ever changing with the latest flagship been the GTX 1060, 1070 and 1080 series with VR ready compatibility. These new graphics cards were made with paschal technology which makes them desktop laptop graphics cards.

They are so powerful as well as expensive, so imagine you built or got a gaming PC for around $2,000 with the latest GPU build, fast forward 2 years. Your graphics card now struggles to keep up with latest AAA game titles. Don’t worry, it’s not your fault.

That’s just the pace technology is moving at. So you have two choices you can either keep up with the pace by purchasing the latest graphics cards every year or you can settle for something you can be comfortable with for 1-3 years.

I choose the latter, I chose to be comfortable and at first, it gets frustrating because I could play some latest games but at low to medium settings and then when the next wave of latest games came out I could only a handful of them at low settings.

I discovered something, I didn’t need all those latest games I only needed a few of my favourite games like FIFA because I play offline with friends and online multiplayer with my online buddies. So FIFA was my go-to game and maybe occasionally I play some GTA V just for fun and stress relief.

When you select those favourite games you keep coming back to play over and over again, you can streamline and get an affordable gaming PC that can play those games very well.

Who will want to buy a gaming PC under 500 dollars?

This is a popular question because some people might feel like a gaming PC under 500 dollars would be shit and can’t really do any hardcore gaming but that’s wrong.

You can do a lot of hardcore gaming with a gaming PC under $500 if you love playing a game over and over again like for example you love playing FIFA both offline with your friends. You love the challenges, tournaments, wagers you guys hold to determine who is the best of the best at that particular time then a gaming PC under $500 is what you need because you really pretty much only play one game.

Let me make I list here to give a quick look at those categories of people that would enjoy having a gaming PC under 500 dollars.

College students

Casual Gamers

If you have a tight budget

You play only 1-2 games every day, all day long, every month and sometimes year in year out. You are still playing the same game. This goes out to the MMORPG players here stuck with playing a particular dungeon countless times because the loot is good and they want to level up their characters.

FIFA fans. The GPUs for gaming pc under 500 dollars works incredibly well with FIFA games because FIFA games are not really graphics intensive games. There are no sampling options, antialiasing, 2x, 4xx to get more precise crisp details. FIFA games are pretty many standard games that run well on budget-friendly gaming PC.

What does a Gaming PC Under $500 have?

Expect something great but not the best. $500 isn’t a walk in the park and we all have different reasons for looking for a gaming PC under 500 dollars and with this amount would get you a good gaming PC which falls into the average category so you are not that far behind the guys with the best gaming PC and graphics cards.

High RAM Size possible more than 6GB RAM. I recommend 8GB or 12GB DDR4 Ram.

Fast and High capacity hard disk drive. SSD recommended or 1TB HDD.

Crisp HD display. I recommend the full HD 1920 x 1080p display but sometimes you can get the 1366 x 768 resolution which is not bad.

I recommend Windows 10 because you have more security against virus because windows defender is more powerful in Windows 10 if updated regularly can withstand most virus attacks. And you don’t need to install any additional antivirus program which may cause your PC to become slow due to unsanctioned. processes running the background.

How I Selected the Best Gaming Computers under 500 dollars (Selection Process)

This is an in-depth article aimed at providing a detailed list of the best gaming pc under 500 dollars for you to choose from and to show that I really went through the rigour of researching the different components.

Graphics Cards

Processors

RAM

SSD or HDD

Why only these 4 things? Because they are the most important component in a gaming laptop. The most important is the graphics card followed by the processor, RAM and finally SSD or HDD depending on the option you end up with. They are other factors too like cooling system, operating system etc.

Let’s get started on the selecting process.

1. Graphics card selection process

Before making any rash decisions and selecting the no.1 best gaming pc under 500 dollars, what I did was to compare the various gaming desktop’s graphics card. So I found the best two gaming desktop graphics cards to be GTX 1050 and AMD Radeon RX 550. I became curious, I wanted to know which is the best graphics card so I don’t give you guys the wrong information when I finally select the no. 1 best gaming desktop under $500.

GTX 1050 vs AMD Radeon RX 550

I did a simple google search AMD Radeon RX 550 vs GTX 1050, checked two sources with reliable benchmarking information and I found out that the GTX 1050 is marginally better in terms of gaming performance and graphical capabilities than the AMD Radeon RX 550.

The AMD Radeon RX 550 was released April 2017 while the GTX 1050 was released in October 2016.

2. CPU Processor Selection Process

The best CPUs in the market are easily the Intel processors but there are so many other CPU processors that are very good with some of them running almost at par with the famous intel core i7 processors. Looking at the gaming desktops under $500 processors, I found the Intel Pentium G4400 and AMD FX-4300.

Intel Pentium G4600 vs AMD FX-4300

With a simple Google search, looking through reliable sources, I found out that in terms of overall gaming performance, the AMD FX-4300 is very slightly better than the Intel Pentium G4600 3.3GHz when it comes to running the latest games. This also means it will be less likely to bottleneck more powerful GPUs, allowing them to achieve more of their gaming performance potential.

3. RAM selection process

This was a fairly easy selection process because of the standard or optimal amount of 8GB RAM is all you need to run pc games very well. More RAM is obviously better since you don’t have unlimited funds having 8GB DDR3 RAM is ok and accepted for now. I know by 2018 the use of DDR4 RAM technology would make things better.

4. SSD or HDD selection process

How did I select which one is better? From the list, I got of gaming desktops under $500 no one comes with an SSD drive so we are stuck with a hard disk drive (HDD) for now. I saw a gaming pc under 500 dollar that comes with an SSD drive but it’s currently out of stock when more stock arrives, this article would be updated to include the gaming desktop under $500 with an SSD drive.

My Final Thoughts

Buying a gaming laptops or desktop PC under $500 doesn’t mean you are going to get a shit gaming PC, you can get the bang for your buck if you remain patient, check out different sites to get the deals available. I would recommend buying a very clean pre-owned gaming pc that way you get more gaming power than when you purchase a brand new item.

I’m impressed to find this information on a Nigerian website. I hope you can do one step better. Give information on how it can be bought and shipped here. There are a lot of us that are very interested but don’t have the necessary information.